Apple on Friday filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the artificial intelligence firm stole trade secrets to develop its own hardware device. The suit claimed that OpenAI poached Apple employees, coaxing them to hand over confidential material, product designs and other tightly held information.
“Recently, significant evidence has emerged suggesting individuals employed by OpenAI wrongfully took Apple’s secret and confidential information regarding our unreleased technologies, processes, and products,” an Apple spokesperson said in an email.
Meanwhile, Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for OpenAI, said that the company is reviewing the court filing. “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets,” he added. “We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”
The lawsuit came just two years after the tech giants announced a major partnership in 2024. The deal in question involved Apple integrating OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, into the operating systems for iPhones, iPads and Macs. However, when Apple showcased its revamped voice assistant Siri last month, its AI component was based on Google’s Gemini AI model rather than ChatGPT.
Tussle between two tech giants
However, the tensions between the two companies began to simmer down last year when OpenAI spent $6.4bn to acquire a hardware startup founded by former Apple design guru Jony Ive. The move reflected that the AI firm was foraying into hardware. It is pertinent to note that Ive’s startup, io Products, is also named in Apple’s lawsuit.
“OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets,” Apple wrote in its complaint. The lawsuit alleged that several former Apple employees joined OpenAI, taking company trade secrets with them.
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Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a former vice-president at Apple, is named in the lawsuit. According to the court documents, Apple alleged that Tan took information about Apple suppliers with him to OpenAI and encouraged interviewees at OpenAI to divulge confidential company information.
“He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring ‘actual parts’ from Apple to their interviews for ‘show and tell’ sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information,” reads Apple’s complaint.
“Our teams are constantly developing breakthrough technologies to create the best products and services in the world, and protecting their work and intellectual property is something we take very seriously," an Apple spokesperson said when asked about the lawsuit. In light of this, the company is seeking damages and a court order that would block OpenAI from possessing or using its trade secrets.
